= is not always defined as equality is bad

Zeugswetter Andreas <andreas.zeugswetter@telecom.at>

From: Zeugswetter Andreas DBT <Andreas.Zeugswetter@telecom.at>
To: "'pgsql-hackers@hub.org'" <pgsql-hackers@hub.org>
Date: 1998-01-12T08:12:34Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Vadim wrote:
> but this will be "known bug": this breaks OO-nature of Postgres,
because of
> operators can be overrided and '=' can mean  s o m e t h i n g (not
equality).
> Example: box data type. For boxes, = means equality of _areas_ and =~
> means that boxes are the same ==> =~ ANY should be used for IN.

Ok, here I think there should be a restriction to have the = operator
always be defined as equality operator. Because in the long run it will
be hard 
to write equality restrictions.   a = a1 and b =~ b1 and c +*#~ c1.
Also =, >, <, >= and the like will allways be candidates for use by the
optimizer
(boolean math to simplify restriction or to make an existing index
usable could be used).

I vote for:  = must always be defined as equality in user defined types.

(if such comparison is not possible for a special type the = should not
be defined for it) 
I therefore also suggest changing the box ops =~ to = and the area = to
some other sign.

Andreas